Bruce Springsteen gets candid about being 'crushed' by depression

The 66-year-old rocker tells all in his new memoir, Born to Run, out Sept. 27, and is promoting the release with a candid interview in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. In the book, Springsteen opens up about his ongoing battle with clinical depression.

"I was crushed between sixty and sixty-two, good for a year and out again from sixty-three to sixty-four," he writes. "Not a good record."

American musician Bruce Springsteen plays at the Trenton War Memorial, Trenton, New Jersey, November 1974. (Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)

Singer Bruce Springsteen walking down Sunset Strip with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, 1975. He is in Los Angeles to promote his album Born To Run. (Photo by Terry O'Neill/Getty Images)

Bruce Springsteen inducts Irish rock group U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York March 14, 2005. The 20th annual ceremony also honoured The Pretenders, Percy Sledge and the O'Jays as well as blues-guitar great Buddy Guy as members of rock's elite. REUTERS/Mike Segar MS/KS

American Bruce Springsteen performs, on October 10, 1988 during an Amnesty International concert Abidjan. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 17: Bruce Springsteen Visits 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' at Rockefeller Center on November 24, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/NBC/Getty Images for 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon')

Musician Bruce Springsteen (L) receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., November 22, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

U.S. musician Bruce Springsteen (C) performs with guitarists Stevie Van Zandt (R) and Nils Lofgren on his "The River Tour 2016" at the Letzigrund stadium in Zurich, Switzerland July 31, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

Bruce Springsteen performs during The River Tour at the LA Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California March 17, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Singer Bruce Springsteen and his wife Patti Scialfa listen to U.S. President Barack Obama speak at the USC Shoah Foundation 20th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles May 7, 2014. Springsteen performed at the event. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS ENTERTAINMENT)

Bruce Springsteen poses at the 2013 MusiCares Person of the Year Tribute and Dinner in his honor in Los Angeles February 8, 2013. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENTERTAINMENT)

"Patti [Scialfa, his wife] will observe a freight train bearing down, loaded with nitroglycerin and running quickly out of track," he writes. "She gets me to the doctors and says, 'This man needs a pill.'"

"If I'm being honest, I'm not completely comfortable with that part of the book, but that's OK," Scialfa tells Vanity Fair. "That's Bruce. He approached the book the way he would approach writing a song, and a lot of times, you solve something that you're trying to figure out through the process of writing—you bring something home to yourself. So in that regard, I think it's great for him to write about depression. A lot of his work comes from him trying to overcome that part of himself."

Vanity Fair

Another topic heavily addressed in the book and article is Springsteen's complicated relationship with his own father, Doug, who suffered from mental illness.

"You don't know the illness's parameters," he tells the reporter. "Can I get sick enough to where I become a lot more like my father than I thought I might?"

In truly poetic, Springsteen-esque fashion, he explains why the painful topic was so important to include in his book.

"One of the points I'm making in the book is that, whoever you've been and wherever you've been, it never leaves you," he says. "I always picture it as a car. All your selves are in it. And a new self can get in, but the old selves can't ever get out. The important thing is, who's got their hands on the wheel at any given moment?"

"I knew I was gonna 'go there' in the book," he adds. "I had to find the roots of my own troubles and issues -- and the joyful things that have allowed me to put on the kind of shows that we put on."

Springsteen called touring his "trustiest form of self-medication" (the statement was made "half in jest," Vanity Fair notes) and mused about the lasting impact of his song, "Born to Run," for which he named his book.

"A good song gathers the years in," he says. "It's why you can sing it with such conviction 40 years after it's been written. A good song takes on more meaning as the years pass by."